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PALAWAN, Philippines — U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited a Filipino military base only miles from the South China Sea, a sign of resolve against Chinese harassment in the waterway that flared this summer.

Antonio Bautista Air Base was Austin’s final stop in the Philippines, a country he’s visited more than any previous secretary of defense. He spoke with officials from Manila’s Western Command, which defends Filipino claims to the South China Sea — mapped in bright green on the wall inside the base’s headquarters.

The trip itself is a message to China, which claims ownership over much of the area despite a 2016 ruling from the United Nations saying otherwise.

In response, the U.S. and Philippines’ militaries have recently become much closer partners. American officials often attribute this warmth to shared interests and values. During a Tuesday press conference, though, Manila’s top defense official was more direct.

“The operative factor ... which has caused this alliance to be as robust as it is, is the Chinese overreach and aggression,” said Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro, noting that Austin initiated the visit.

Teodoro was referencing behavior around the islands mapped in the headquarters’ lobby, in particular Second Thomas Shoal. This is the site of an ageing Filipino outpost that houses a clutch of its marines.

To protest the Philippines’ presence there, Chinese coast guard ships have blocked missions to resupply the outpost. At times they’ve done so violently, including a standoff this June in which Chinese forces rammed Filipino ships and brandished knives, cutting off one sailor’s thumb.

The crisis nearly triggered a mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and the Philippines, whose president has said would activate if China killed a Filipino citizen.

Austin later declined to specify whether the U.S. agrees with that threshold, though American officials have long argued that the treaty applies to the South China Sea.

China and the Philippines later negotiated a temporary deal to avoid further crises around Second Thomas Shoal. Rather than ceasing altogether, Chinese ships and planes have kept up such behavior around other disputed parts of the South China Sea.

Austin is not America’s first defense secretary to visit Palawan, but he’s the first one to do so in this era of conflict around the waterway.

A painting a local student made for Austin drove home the point. It featured the American and Philippines’ flags above two clasped hands in uniform, with the words: “West Philippine Sea, it’s ours,” referring to another name for the South China Sea.

To help the Philippines defend its territory, the U.S. recently sent the country half a billion dollars in long-term security aid, more than 12 times the number last year. Meanwhile, Manila is also funding a more capable military — investing $35 billion in the effort over 10 years.

The aid will act as a kickstart, mainly buying equipment to help Manila monitor its waterways. While at the base Tuesday, Austin watched a demonstration of maritime drones already being delivered to the Philippines through U.S. assistance.

These systems, which look like rowboats with a swiveling camera on top, are already deployed to Oyster Bay, another part of Palawan. Austin said that the Philippines will be ordering more drones with the aid.

The base Austin visited on the island is one of nine military sites where the U.S. can rotate in equipment of its own — a number of locations that almost doubled in his time as secretary. Some of the bases are more developed than others, and even the one on Palawan partly overlaps with the jungle, as wild animals roam and locals hang clothes out to dry.

Though Congress has yet to pass this year’s defense budget, the Pentagon has requested $128 million to build military infrastructure across the nine sites. The number is more than twice that of the previous year.

Projects like these will help the Pentagon bring more and more advanced equipment to the country, such as the Typhon, a missile launcher with a range long enough to catch China’s attention.

The U.S. deployed one of the launchers to the Philippines this spring, and Manila has sought to buy one of its own. American defense officials, speaking with reporters traveling alongside Austin, acknowledged the interest but said the weapon is still in development and not yet for sale.#south-china-sea #philippines #indo-pacific #china #dn-dnr #circulated-defense-news #circulated-military-times
Pentagon chief visits island near South China Sea in sign to Beijing

MANILA, Philippines — After months of debate, the U.S. will allow Ukraine to fire long-range American weapons into Russia.

President Joe Biden recently gave permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System, with a 180-mile range. Ukraine has sought such authority since the Biden administration first allowed Kyiv to fire American-provided weapons into Russia this May.

Despite Ukraine’s entreaties, the U.S. resisted the choice until now – arguing it would be an escalation with little battlefield value.

This marks the latest reversal from the White House on what weapons it’s sending and how freely Ukraine can use them. The pattern has repeated throughout the war for equipment like F-16 fighters, long-range missiles and tanks.

The change in course is not a sign that the U.S. thinks the long range missiles will be more useful than before. Instead it’s a tit-for-tat response to North Korea sending more than 10,000 troops to fight alongside Russia in the border region of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces took a swathe of territory earlier this fall.

The North Korean troops haven’t seen much fighting yet, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters this week, but he expects them to enter combat soon.

Russia has so far waited to begin a counteroffensive around Kursk, putting other parts of the front line first. As it suffers enormous casualties – as high as 1,250 per day, U.S. officials have said – the North Korean troops will help Russia maintain its positions without needing another draft.

That said, because of their different languages and lack of experience fighting alongside Russia – far from an ally for the last 30 years – Austin doubted the North Korean forces will be very effective.

Ukraine has not yet used ATACMS to fire deep into Russia, an American defense official said.

For now, the revised policy will focus only on the Kursk region, though Ukraine has asked for permission to fire anywhere the missiles can reach. The U.S. may grant such authority if Russia continues to escalate.

To wit, the initial choice to let Ukraine fire American weapons into Russia came after Moscow began a spring offensive on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and one that sits close to the border. The White House argued then that restricting the fires created an arbitrary haven for Russian forces, who could station equipment just out of reach.

Just where that permission applied was convoluted at first, with the Pentagon saying it was only meant for the Kharkiv region and the White House expanding it soon after.

Speaking with reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels, a senior U.S. defense official doubted even the embargo on long-range strike would last, referencing the no-no-yes pattern throughout the war.

“Never say never,” the official said.

Notwithstanding, the U.S. stood firm for months. Eventually, it settled on three public arguments to make its case.

America’s stocks of the missiles are low – so much so that it didn’t send them to Ukraine for much of the war. At the same time, the Pentagon has argued that Ukraine was building its own long-range weapons, mostly drones, that worked just as well.

Ukraine has used these to hit Russian oil refineries and ammunition depots, causing major damage in the latter case.

After the policy change in May, Russia also moved many of its planes beyond the 180-mile range, expecting the U.S. to eventually relent. That means Ukraine won’t be able to stop barrages of glide bombs – essentially imprecise weapons tweaked to be more accurate – that have pounded their cities for more than a year.

A congressional aide told Defense News the new permission could still help Ukraine target some important military sites, such as ammunition depots.

But with ATACMS in such short supply, the U.S. also hasn’t said whether the policy change also extends to long range weapons provided by Britain and France. Both countries have said Ukraine should be able to fire these missiles wherever it wants, but they rely on American parts and data to target military sites, giving Washington a veto.#dn-dnr #russia #ukraine #atacms #long-range-strike #circulated-defense-news #circulated-military-times
US allows Ukraine to fire deeper into Russia ahead of Kursk battle

DARWIN, Australia — The U.S., Australia and Japan agreed to broaden a series of drills and trainings Sunday, the next step in preparing their militaries to work together in crisis.

To announce the changes, the three countries’ top defense official gathered at a base in Darwin, which sits on Australia’s northern coast and, in a sign of how much their relationship has grown, was once bombed heavily by Japan during the second world war.

A group of U.S. Marines have rotated through the site for almost 15 years, and it’s since become a symbol of Washington and Canberra’s military ties.

Those two countries are now expanding the clique to include Japan.

Starting next year, Tokyo will send a brigade to train with the Australian and American militaries. The first of these exercises will be Talisman Sabre held farther west in Queensland in 2025, though Japan said it would also play a larger role in other drills — building up to a live-fire version of the exercise in 2027.

Australia, meanwhile, committed to the same in exercises held in Japan.

“Because you’ve got the exercises bilaterally, what you’re really doing is accelerating the cooperation between Australian and Japanese forces,” said Brad Glosserman, an expert on the Japanese military who advises the Pacific Forum, a think tank.

The upshot is that the drills will no longer act as a straight line, connecting two militaries. They’ll now look more like a triangle, helping each country learn each other’s habits, language and equipment.

The teaming could help in the event of a crisis, whether from a natural disaster or conflict with America’s top rival, China. In particular, a U.S. defense official said, Japan and Australia will learn from American Marines on how to fight in littorals. These shallow-water environments resemble Taiwan and the South China Sea, where China has grown more aggressive in recent years.

And in the case of Japan and Australia, the exercises will involve two of the region’s most powerful and growing militaries. In the last two years each country has pledged to increase defense spending and buy more advanced weapons. The change has been especially stark in Japan, whose pacifist constitution still restricts its armed forces.

Partnering U.S. allies in the region in new ways has been a hallmark of the Biden Pentagon’s approach to the Indo-Pacific. For almost 70 years, the U.S. interacted with other countries like the hub and spokes of a bike wheel: each had a relationship with America, but not each other.

That model is changing as the U.S. — and a more threatening China — has encouraged such countries to work together. After the reelection of Donald Trump in November, it’s also a sign of American allies clinging to each other amid uncertainty in Washington.

“All of this is about trying to insulate them from the potential disruptions of the Trump administration,” Glosserman said.

Two years ago, Australia and Japan signed a deal that allows their militaries to access each other’s territory. In 2026, Japan may deploy its advanced F-35 fighters to Australia during exercise Pitch Black, its defense minister said Sunday. And the two are also building weapons together, with Japan interested in the second pillar of AUKUS, a submarine pact between the U.S., U.K. and Australia that includes development of advanced technology.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is on his last official trip to the Indo-Pacific. While there, he’s trying to reassure his counterparts that Washington won’t veer from its commitments despite the change in administration.

In part to make the U.S., Japan and Australia relationship more durable, the three countries agreed to a more formal schedule of meetings for their top defense officials. It’s a similar structure to what the U.S. has built with Japan and South Korea, two historic rivals, over the last two years.

“There’s an enormous strategic benefit in us working more closely together,” Richard Marles, Australia’s deputy prime minister and defense minister, said in a briefing here.

Concerning for allies in the region, though, is the chance America doesn’t follow what they see as its strategic interest. Trump’s nominee to replace Austin is Pete Hegseth, a military veteran and Fox News host with no Washington experience.

When asked whether he was confident in Hegseth’s ability, Marles argued just that.

“I approach the prospect of getting to know Pete Hegseth and working with him with enormous optimism,” he said.#pentagon #indo-pacific #australia #japan #china #dn-dnr #circulated-defense-news #circulated-marine-corps-times #circulated-military-times
US, Japan, Australia broaden exercises, set target for live-fire drill